


Complexity

by Mercenary



Category: Violet Evergarden (Anime)
Genre: Dietfried POV, Episode 12 Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-15 03:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14151096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercenary/pseuds/Mercenary
Summary: He cannot hate what his brother loved. Cannot love what he has hated for so long. Complexity is the downfall of straightforward emotion, perhaps the one true thing that his father had ever told them.





	Complexity

It always came back to her. 

Dietfried had spent so long despising her. Waiting for her to die, destroyed on the battlefield.  A day that never came.

Which was why he hated himself, the way he yanked her out of the line of fire. Placed his own body in front of her, as if she were some innocent girl, and not the demon of his nightmares.  A killer that refused to kill went against all that he had believed her to be. 

On that face, against his will, he had witnessed deep emotions. A monotone voice that had shattered as she screamed her pain of being alive when his brother was not.  Oh, yes, he hated how that girl had shown herself to be _human._ So painfully human that it made him want to yank his own hair out.

Violet Evergarden wrote letters that touched the heart of those who read them. Hadn’t that been what the Doll he’d been charged to provide security for had said? She had grown up from a pretty child into a strikingly beautiful young woman. Who wore that emerald pendant despite how it clashed with her eyes and clothes. She carried Gilbert around with her everyday…

How dreadfully ironic it was that she alone might understand his pain and loss. A demon of his nightmares that mourned the loss of Gilbert and had lived to protect him.  He could have let her die and more than once the Naval Captain had considered it.  Considered letting the damned insurgents kill her and finally put to rest the cause of his sleepless nights.

Instead, he’d not only saved her life, he’d put his own at risk to protect it. Why had he done so, Dietfried wondered. Thinking of the years of resentment and hate directed at her.

Gilbert had loved her enough to die for her. 

She alone had heard the last wishes of his brother. Been by his side for years, loyally following orders like the tool she had been, only to stand shakily before him as a young woman.  Who had deflected bullets with prosthetic metal arms away from Dietfried.

He panted heavily, as he reached out a hand to her face.  In those heeled boots of hers, she stood close to his own height, her doll-like beauty marred with bruises and blood.  Dietfried pulled his hand back abruptly and found himself grabbing her shoulder.  He pulled her towards him. Flush against his chest as if he hadn’t been disgusted by her very existence. The older brother of Gilbert embraced her. 

“He’s dead and never coming back. I wish it had been you and that won’t ever change,” the older Bougainvillea brother told her honestly. “But perhaps you are what legacy remains of him.  He changed you, didn’t he? If you won’t kill even to protect yourself then you better live to protect my brother’s wishes for you.”

There was no room for forgiveness or forget inside Dietfried’s heart. All the disgust and hate had burrowed too deep for him to ever think fondly of her.  On top of the train, he slowly released her, laughing bitterly inside that of all the people it would be her who understood him.  And when her knees buckled and she fell forwards, he caught her in a bruising grip, hoping this would be the last time they ever crossed paths.

The truth was that he could never really hate someone that Gilbert had loved so dearly. It would be better for the both of them if they had no reminder of the one they had both lost.

 


End file.
